Companies who employ hydraulic fracturing ‒ also known as fracking ‒ on public and American Indian lands will have to publicly disclose what chemicals they use during the process, according to fracking rules released by the government.

The Bureau of Land Management issued the first federal regulations of fracking on
Friday, which come into effect in 90 days. Along with disclosing
the chemicals, companies will have to ensure the protection of
groundwater supplies, increase their standards for interim
storage of recovered waste fluids, and take measures to lower the
risk of cross-well contamination.

“Current federal well-drilling regulations are more than 30
years old and they simply have not kept pace with the technical
complexities of today’s hydraulic fracturing operations,”
Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell said in a statement.
“[I]t is absolutely critical the public have confidence that
transparent and effective safety and environmental protections
are in place.”

The new rule provides a framework of safeguards and disclosure
protocols to allow for the “continued responsible
development” of federal resources, Jewell said.

The BLM’s final rule came after receiving 1.5 million public
comments during a four-year process to update onshore oil and gas
drilling regulations. It will cover the more than 100,000 wells
on about 700 million acres of underground mineral rights on
federally managed lands, or about 90 percent of wells on public
lands.

States and tribes will be able to request variances from the
provisions if they have an equal or more protective regulation in
place, the agency said. Many of the provisions in the rule are
similar to or based on existing state or tribal rules and
industry best practices.

“This rule will protect public health and the environment
during and after hydraulic fracturing operations at a modest cost
while both respecting the work previously done by the industry,
the states and the tribes and promoting the adoption of more
protective standards across the country,” said Assistant
Secretary for Land and Minerals Management Janice Schneider.
“It will be implemented in the most efficient way possible to
avoid duplication or unnecessary activities by industry, other
regulators, or BLM staff. We know how important it is to get this
right.”

BLM estimates the new rule will cost less than one-fourth of 1
percent of the cost of drilling a well, based on the Energy
Information Administration’s average per well cost of $5.4
million.

In spite of receiving input from the oil and gas industry,
supporters accuse President Barack Obama and his administration
of seeking to throttle fossil-fuel production in the US.

“Despite the renaissance on state and private lands, energy
production on federal lands has fallen, and this rule is just one
more barrier to growth,” Erik Milito, director of upstream
operations for the American Petroleum Institute in Washington,
said in a statement.

Environmental groups are applauding the new rule, but would like
it to go further, Bloomberg reported. They are prodding the
Environmental Protection Agency and BLM to issue tight
restrictions on methane leaks from fracked wells, a source of
greenhouse gases.